Whitewaller London 2018: What to See

When you’re not browsing the art fairs happening this week in London, Whitewaller London recommends visiting these gallery and museum exhibitions.

Zeng Fanzhi
Hauser & Wirth Mayfair
October 2—November 10
Extending across three of the gallery’s locations, in Zürich, Hong Kong, and London, “Zeng Fanzhi” is a uniquely comprehensive study of the artist’s work by Hauser & Wirth. In an unprecedented format for the gallery, the exhibition shows the scope of Zeng’s work and his rigorous study of painting’s possibilities. The Zürich gallery will focus on new abstract landscapes (September 22–November 10). London will host figurative works (October 2–November 10). In Hong Kong, Hauser & Wirth will display paintings and drawings that combine Chinese and Western influences (October 8–November 10). The tri-pronged exhibition structure offers a nuanced view of an artist who constantly researches, reinvents, and forges new ideas.

Hyundai Commission
Tate Modern South Bank
October 2, 2018—February 14, 2019
Tate Modern has invited Tania Bruguera to create the fourth Hyundai Commission. The Hyundai Commission partnership allows one artist to show a site-specific work in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, a unique industrial space that reflects its own impact on contemporary art. Bruguera will take advantage of the platform to address political and social concerns, prioritizing the idea that art can be an active change agent.

Turner Prize
Tate Britain South Bank
Now—January 6, 2019
From September 26 to January 6, 2018, Tate Britain will stage shortlisted candidates for the Tuner Prize 2018: Forensic Architecture, Naeem Mohaiemen, Charlotte Prodger, and Luke Willis Thompson. Each year, the Turner Prize recognizes artists who spark debate and evolution in contemporary British art. This year’s shortlist honors Forensic Architecture for visualizing evidence of human-rights abuses; Mohaiemen for his study of migration and postcolonial legacies; Prodger for her exploration of queer bodies and technology; and Willis Thompson for his investigation of the material culture of violence. The winner will be announced in December.

Adam Pendleton’s “Our Ideas”
PACE Gallery Mayfair
October 2—November 9
“Adam Pendleton: Our Ideas” is a survey exhibition encompassing video, painting, collage, Mylar works, and drawing from the past decade. A multifaceted artist, Pendleton experiments with different mediums, investigating how social norms function from alternate viewpoints. Deeply aware of the omnipresence of the past, he once described his work as suggesting “a future dynamic where new historical narratives and meanings can exist.” “Our Ideas” will grapple with these implications, particularly in Just Back from Los Angeles: A Portrait of Yvonne Rainer, a filmed conversation with the choreographer dealing with freedom, language, life, and political change.

José Parlá’s “Echo of Impressions”
Ben Brown Gallery Mayfair
October 4—November 10
“Echo of Impressions” features new paintings and sculptures by José Parlá that reference the physical and psychological influences of the city. The large-scale abstract works find rhythm in densely layered paint and vibrant colors, inspired by Parlá’s urban contemplations. New York–based, and raised in Miami, Parlá explores music, immigrant roots, and personal experiences, while reflecting on the constant construction, deconstruction, and environmental change endured by the city and its dwellers.

Elmgreen & Dragset’s “This is How We Bite Our Tongue”
Whitechapel Gallery Whitechapel
Now—January 13, 2019
In their first major overview in the U.K., Elmgreen & Dragset present a landmark exhibition, including a site-specific installation, at Whitechapel Gallery. The Berlin-based artistic duo has collaborated since 1995, creating immersive spaces that challenge visitors to reexamine the banal yet systemic power imbalances of the everyday. Inspired by artists such as the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916), This Is How We Bite Our Tongue contemplates unspoken emotions, resignation, and resilience. For example, Hammershøi depicted bourgeois spaces to unveil the psychological repression of domestic life; This Is How We Bite Our Tongue will culminate in a display of icon-like sculptures to “speak of misguided reverence and of judgment, lust and fear,” according to the artists.

 

Atelier E.B 
Serpentine Sackler Gallery Kensington Gardens
October 3, 2018—January 6, 2019
A two-city endeavor based in Edinburgh and Brussels, Beca Lipscombe and Lucy McKenzie’s collaborative Atelier E.B combines applied and fine arts to probe concepts of production, distribution, and commerce. In “Passer-by,” the duo will focus on “the mannequin,” transforming the Serpentine Sackler Gallery into three interiors: a showroom with Atelier E.B’s latest collection, a selection of archival objects and materials, and a series of newly commissioned works by contemporary artists (including works by Tauba Auerbach, Anna Blessmann, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Steff Norwood, Elizabeth Radcliffe, Bernie Reid, and Markus Selg). An inside-out examination of the fashion industry, “Passer-by” will offer a vision of the future, the possibilities of retail in a digital age.

“Oceania”
Royal Academy of Arts Mayfair
Now—December 10
“Oceania” is the United Kingdom’s first major survey of Oceanic art. Bringing together 200 works spanning 500 years of history, the exhibition presents art from the sweeping Pacific region. Highlights include the 14th-century wooden Kaitaia carving, one of the oldest known objects to have been found in New Zealand; a 19th-century feast bowl from the Solomon
Islands that measures nearly seven meters in length; and an 1818 drawing of a face tattoo. The historical works will be complemented by contemporary pieces by the New Zealand multimedia artist Lisa Reihana and Niuean artist John Pule, to underscore the dialogue between Captain James Cook’s 1768 voyage on the Pacific and present-day issues born of its legacy.

Paula Rego’s “From Mind to Hand, Drawings from 1980 to 2001”
Marlborough Fine Art Mayfair
Now–October 27
One of today’s leading figurative artists, Paula Rego has worked with Marlborough Fine Art since the 1980s. She has also long embraced drawing, stating, “Drawing from the model is more spontaneous than drawing from the imagination. . . . I think if you have something to look at and try and get it, you find that all sorts of things happen.” This essential element of Rego’s practice—this avenue of imagination—will be on view at the gallery, where an exhibition of nearly sixty preparatory works will shed light on her oeuvre of paintings, prints, and pastels.

Noor Afshan Mirza & Brad Butler
Delfina Foundation Westminster 
Now–December 1
From September 27 to December 1 2018, the Delfina Foundation presents The Scar, an immersive, five-screen installation that tells a fictionalized true story. Created by the London- and Istanbul-based artists Noor Afshan Mirza and Brad Butler, The Scar follows four travelers, each an archetype, in a tale of oppression, inequality, and, finally, empowerment. Mirza and Butler’s ambitious work of magical realism tackles urgent political issues, asking: What would a deconstructed, postpatriarchal world actually look like? What will it take for hope to become reality?

Dan Graham’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll”
Lisson Gallery Marylebone
October 3—Novemeber 3
“Rock ’n’ Roll” is Conceptual artist Dan Graham’s tenth exhibition at Lisson Gallery. A paragon of Conceptual art, Graham uses the familiar space to explore the audience-performance relationship in a presentation of stage-set and film. His “pavilions” (or, in his words, “quasi-functional spaces”) are elaborate optical illusions in the round—ripe for viewers to walk around and activate as both performer and voyeur. A recording of Graham’s 1983 performance work with composer Glenn Branca plays at the center of the installation, sparking further questions of self-perception.

 

Georg Baselitz
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Mayfair
October 2—November 21
In “Georg Baselitz: Paintings from the 80s,” Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac presents works by Georg Baselitz from a seminal decade during which the artist mastered his brushstroke and visual language, wielding bold strokes, color, and folkloric references. Citing Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Philip Guston as influences, Baselitz produced work that was personal, political, and expressive. London Ely House will host paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from this influential period from October 2 to November 10, 2018.

Rachel Maclean 
Zabludowicz Collection Belsize Park
Now—December 16
Rachel Maclean astutely combines comedy and horror in her second solo show with the Zabludowicz Collection. Known for her darkly humorous fables, the Glasgow-based artist uses computer animation and green-screen (and often her own acting) to dress societal critiques in florid style. The centerpiece of the exhibition is I’m Terribly Sorry, a new virtual reality commission that invites viewers into a dystopian British urban landscape constructed from tourist souvenirs. The exhibition will also feature Make Me Up, a new commission inspired by the centennial of women’s suffrage, and Spite Your Face (2017), the film with which Maclean represented Scotland at the 57th Venice Biennale. Alluding to the divisive political campaigns of 2016, Spite Your Face cloaks a critique of our post- truth era around the structure of the Italian tale The Adventures of Pinocchio.

 

Martin Eder’s “Parasites”
Newport Street Gallery South Bank
Now—January 13, 2019
Featuring works spanning over a decade of Eder’s career, “Parasites” is the Berlin-based artist Marin Eder’s largest solo exhibition to date. To prepare for the retrospective, Eder secluded himself with decades of his own sketchbooks, drawings, and paintings, in order to understand the continuity and change of his practice. “Parasites” will consider a career-long interest in beauty and ugliness, the inane and the macabre, in an exploration of the medium of painting—and banal details. In The Reaper, for example, Eder places an overused-stock-photo bunny in a dewy field, but sinisterly equips the animal with a scythe.